With a population of 100,000, Dujayl, Iraq is located 35 miles north of the capital, and is part of the Sunni Triangle. The small village is situated near Balad, off Highway One’s stretch from Baghdad to Kirkuk.

Dujayl never recovered from the losses it suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist security forces in 1982. Not only did it lose a significant number of its residents, but the town’s main source of income: dates, olives and fruit orchards, was destroyed in retaliation for the assassination attempt against Hussein by local villagers. Farm fields were burned, homes were razed, and development money to Dujayl was withheld.

Today, Ad Dujayl is full of decaying brick and stucco buildings that reflect decades of neglect. And though shops offer fruits, vegetables and chickens, inflation in the postwar era has put such staples out of reach for many people.

Dujayl has rough, gravel streets marked by open sewage flows and poor trash collection. In an area where the per capita income is estimated at $60 per month, the town remains in a virtual state of ruin. Dujayl’s corroded water tanks reportedly release green-colored drinking water through a system supported by concrete blocks and run by a small back-up generator. The facility was built in 1958 and has not been refurbished since.

The landscape surrounding Dujail is mostly scrubland, stark testament to the bulldozing and burning of thousands of acres in 1982.